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by mrs_leary (julie)



Category: Merlin (TV) RPF
Genre: Christmas, Family, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-26
Updated: 2012-10-26
Packaged: 2017-11-17 01:27:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/546052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/julie/pseuds/mrs_leary
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Colin is relaxing at home on Christmas Eve when Bradley shows up on his doorstep. Perhaps Colin is one of the few people who didn't expect that.</p>
            </blockquote>





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**Author's Note:**

  * For [sweetalison007](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweetalison007/gifts).



> A fill for my **[cottoncandy-bingo](http://cottoncandy-bingo.dreamwidth.org/)** card: 'Honesty'. Though at this point my fills are looking pretty random.
> 
> Also, **sweetalison007** asked me if I'd write something set in Armagh. I know you wanted something long, hon, but this is all I have for now!

♦

 _There’s no place like home_ , Colin Morgan whispered to himself with only the tiniest hint of irony.

It was Christmas Eve, and his Mum was putting the finishing touches on a late supper, while the rest of them sat around the kitchen table chatting and laughing in that relaxed kind of way that Colin knew nowhere else. His Dad was at the head of the table, exchanging genial quips with Neil, while Neil’s latest girlfriend chipped in every now and then with exactly the right kind of wry humour. She was a keeper, Laurie was; at last Neil had found someone who not only deserved the thoroughly besotted way he did love, but also returned the favour in kind. It made Colin feel, for the first time in _years_ , the tiniest bit lonely.

‘Ready in ten,’ Colin’s Mum announced. ‘Top up your drinks. Colin, come and fetch the bread, would you? And the butter from the fridge.’

He did so, of course – and when the doorbell rang, he shrugged and went to get it, because he was the one up, after all.

Turned out it was for him, anyway. Colin hadn’t really known who to expect, but he’d assumed someone local. Bradley James wouldn’t have even made the list. ‘Oh!’ Colin exclaimed in what was no doubt his thickest brogue. ‘Bradley!’

‘Colin,’ Bradley said in a rough kind of voice. He was standing there on the front porch looking rather uncertain, hands jammed firmly into his jeans pockets, and gaze roving restlessly.

‘Thought you were in –’

‘Dorset, yeah. I was.’ Bradley’s gaze roamed past Colin’s face – and then returned with a surprised kind of double–take. _‘Oh!’_ said Bradley on a gusted breath, so it was almost an _Oooph!_  – and he stepped forward, his hands lifting as if in prayer –

He stepped forward, his hands lifting, and then Bradley James – Colin’s friend and colleague, hitherto straight – was cupping Colin’s face and kissing him with mouth both tender and strong.

 _‘Bradley…’_ Colin whispered when the man was done. Not that Bradley had drawn away. He still reverenced Colin with his hands, and his lips were still so close that they captured the breath with which Colin said his name. ‘What –’

‘I’ve been waiting a long long time for you to look at me like that,’ Bradley confessed, low and intense. And then, with the tiniest hint of humour he added, ‘Please don’t tell me it’s cos you have some other guy stashed away in there.’

‘No – No, I –’

‘Good!’ Bradley leant forward again, just quickly, to whisper a dry kiss across Colin’s mouth, and then he stepped back. ‘Well,’ he commented conversationally, ‘I suppose that cut right to the chase, anyway.’

‘Erm…’

‘Colin?’ came his Mum’s voice from the hallway – and then she was there, and they’d quickly drawn apart even further, though it must be obvious from their rather flustered demeanours – ‘Shut the door, Colin, won’t you? Bradley! How lovely to see you.’

‘Hello, Mrs Morgan.’

‘Colin didn’t tell me –’

‘Colin didn’t know,’ Bradley said. ‘I’m sorry, I’m sure this is a really bad time –’

‘Not at all,’ she reassured him. ‘Have you eaten? We’re just about to have supper; we’re a bit late tonight. Come through, won’t you?’ And she was ushering Bradley further into the house, sparing Colin a questioning glance – though Colin got the impression he didn’t actually have a say in the matter, no matter how gobsmacked he was looking.

Colin trailed along after the pair, to find Bradley being seated next to Colin’s place – not that there was anywhere else – and being introduced to Laurie. Colin didn’t need to be told; he fetched an extra setting of cutlery, and put it in a bundle to Bradley’s right, fetched another placemat and napkin, before asking, ‘D’you want a drink? Bradley?’

‘Sure. Thanks.’ Those sincere blue eyes looking up at him. ‘Whatever everyone else is having.’

Colin poured him a glass of red wine with hands that maybe trembled the tiniest bit, then a tumbler of water, and then squeezed past him to regain his own seat. He remained quiet while the six of them ate – while they ate whatever it was that Colin’s Mum had made. No doubt it was tasty and nutritious and seasonal, and everything it should be, and Colin didn’t have a brain cell or a taste bud to spare for considering it, because he was still somewhere on the wrong side of gobsmacked.

The other five of them chatted together easily about all the usual things – work, holidays, travelling, Christmas, family, friends – while Colin remained silent, busy thinking about what everyone else was wondering but no one was asking.

Until at last, with the main meal done and pudding not quite ready, Colin’s Mum looked gently yet levelly at Bradley, and he put his hands on the table and said, ‘I suppose you’d all like to know what I’m doing here.’

‘You’ll always be welcome here, Bradley,’ Colin’s Mum said.

‘I appreciate that, Mrs Morgan. I really do. But I suppose I should tell you that… Well.’

Colin couldn’t bear to look at him, but he was aware in the periphery of his vision of Bradley facing up to this with extraordinary courage, even while his hands tensed against the placemat, and he stammered just a bit.

‘Well. I was talking with my Mum this morning, Mrs Morgan. And she made me realise – how very much –’ Bradley cleared his throat, and then suddenly it was said: ‘How very much I’m in love with your son.’

Colin’s Mum stood, and stepped closer to give Bradley a quick hug, to ruffle his hair. ‘Of course you are, dear.’ And she headed off to see to the pudding, as if it were all settled now.

As if it could be as easy as that! Colin sat there, feeling the stares of his Dad and Neil and Laurie heavy upon him. Bradley, at least, was looking elsewhere, but he was waiting, of course. He was waiting for a response. He hadn’t even reached up to stroke his hair back into some semblance of order. He was in the worst possible place a bloke could be. So it was mainly with a sense of doing the decent thing by Bradley, that Colin muttered something along the lines of, ‘That’s all right, then.’

And everyone else let out a pent–up breath as if they’d been genuinely stressing about the whole thing.

Bradley turned his head just slightly towards Colin, with his attention entirely focussed on whatever Colin’s next words might be. ‘Does that mean…?’

 _Jesus_ , did it really need to be said, even now? ‘Yes!’ Colin blurted out in annoyance. ‘ _Yes_ , all right? Yes, of _course!’_

And Bradley smiled. Though they still couldn’t quite look at each other.

When Colin’s Mum came back in a moment later with a tray of steaming bowls and a jug of custard, Colin said, ‘Don’t think I’ll be coming to Mass tonight, Mum.’

And she responded quite complacently, ‘Of course not, dear. That’s quite all right.’

♦

Finally – _finally_ – they were alone together, and safely hidden away in Colin’s bedroom, with the door firmly closed and the house empty around them, too, once the others had all gone to Midnight Mass. Colin indicated that Bradley should sit on the bed, and Colin himself took the rickety old chair; turned it to face Bradley with a sense of serious business ahead.

A moment’s panic flashed over Bradley’s mutable face. ‘Oh god, we don’t have to _talk_ about it, do we?’

‘You don’t wanna –?’

‘No.’ Bradley shook his head emphatically. ‘ _No_. Haven’t I done enough already?’

‘That you have,’ Colin agreed. ‘So…’ He wasn’t sure there were many other realistic options, to be honest, but maybe that was his one–track mind causing an epic failure of imagination. ‘So, d’you wanna…’

‘Yes.’ With an emphatic nod. ‘ _Yes_ , I do wanna –’

Oh. ‘ _Not_ talk…?’

‘Absolutely.’

Colin cast him a doubtful look. ‘It’s not too soon?’

Bradley rolled his eyes. ‘I think I’ve been waiting _years_ for this.’

‘Ah. And there I was muddling along, so sure you were straight.’

‘Does that even _mean_ anything any more? Straight is a dead concept.’

Colin frowned over that. ‘Dunno…’ he said, quibbling. Cos he was quite certain that he was gay. One hundred percent certain. He’d never been more certain about that in his _life_.

‘Colin –’

‘Yeah?’

‘I think you’re missing the point here.’ And Bradley said, enunciating very clearly, ‘I don’t believe in straight.’

Colin decided he was happy to forego the chance for a right good argument. ‘Sure, if that’s true for you…’

‘It’s true for me.’

And then Colin was on his knees on the bedroom floor, shifting close into where Bradley’s thighs widened in welcome, and their arms were winding around each other, they were drawing each other into an encompassing hold, and they were _kissing_ , they were _kissing_ … and _Lord_ , it was as sweet as.

♦

After a while, Colin was fumbling at Bradley’s shirt buttons, mumbling something stupidly heartfelt about unwrapping the best Christmas present, the best _ever_ , and Bradley was murmuring please _please_ , as if he wasn’t at all sure that even now Colin understood what he most needed, but then at last God _at last_ Colin was pushing gently deeply _resoundingly_ inside the man, the worldwide night _resounded_ around him, and Bradley’s breath was catching his hands tensing as if snagging on the pain –

‘All right, Bradley?’ he asked, stilling once he’d sunk right down in again.

‘Yes,’ the man panted. ‘Yes.’ His fingers dug hard into Colin’s thighs. ‘Come on, damn you –’

 _Bradley_ , Colin was murmuring, like it was a prayer, and Bradley pleaded, _Take me apart_ , to which Colin replied, _I will, if you put me together after_ , and Bradley promised, _I will_.

♦

They lay there quiet, wrapped up close and naked together in the narrow bed, listening as the others arrived back home. There were quiet murmured warnings, and then a giggle from Laurie as Neil said in a voice intended to carry, ‘As if they’re even _asleep_ , for God’s sake.’

‘Ssh,’ Colin’s Mum admonished.

Once everyone had settled, Colin turned towards Bradley, and asked, ‘What did you mean? When I came to the door. You said you’d been waiting for me to look like that.’

‘Like you’re home.’

‘But I am,’ Colin pointed out.

Bradley turned in towards him, too, so their breath sighed against each other’s lips. ‘You looked at me like we were together, and that was home.’

‘But, Bradley –’

The man turned the tiniest bit severe. ‘Are you gonna tell me I was imagining things…? _Now?_ After all we’ve just been through? Shall I call up my Mum and tell her it was just an idiotic mistake…?’

‘No, Bradley,’ he obediently replied.

‘Good.’

Bradley settled in even closer, as if that was even possible, and then Colin settled in even closer, too, his arms encompassing the most precious gift he’d ever been given. ‘You know,’ he commented thoughtfully, ‘this _does_ actually feel like home.’

And Bradley kissed him again, and proved it true. 

♦


End file.
